Eyes on every move Hartzer makes

As the dust settles on the news that Brian Hartzer is moving into an heir apparent position at
Westpac Banking Corp
, chatter has turned to who he might poach from his old employer, ANZ Banking Group, to join the Gail Kelly gang.

Hartzer now heads Royal Bank of Scotland’s UK retail division but before that he spent 10 years working at ANZ, firstly in consumer finance and then as head of its retail division. In that time, the affable New Yorker would have cemented strong relationships with up-and-coming talent at the Melbourne-based bank.

Once he extracts himself from RBS, Hartzer, at some date next year, will take on the newly created role of head of Australian Financial Services at Westpac, a position that puts him firmly in the running to eventually replace Westpac chief Gail Kelly. It’s one of the better jobs in banking and there’s been talk of ANZ executives taking bets on who among them is likely to be drawn across to Westpac’s Kent Street, Sydney headquarters.

That said, given three years will have passed between when he left ANZ in May 2009 and when he starts at Westpac, Hartzer’s contact book may have collected some dust of its own. Some in ANZ see a widespread poaching raid unlikely and, for that matter, not in Hartzer’s style.

When he decamped for RBS, the only ANZ exec we know of who joined him in the UK was Chelvi Chelvendra, who had worked alongside Hartzer on the bank’s branch revitalisation programme. Aside from being the only one, Chelvendra had actually left ANZ about three years earlier.

Then again, it seems only fair that some domestic retail-focused people at ANZ could be lured across, given the lingering feel in some quarters that unless you’re working on Asia at ANZ then you’re not really where it’s at. And Westpac is an Australian retail bank first and foremost.